


Stone by Stone

by orphan_account



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - Horror, Drugs, Ghosts, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, M/M, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-22
Updated: 2013-01-22
Packaged: 2017-11-26 12:42:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/650636
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In order to make a better life for himself, Kyo moves to a house in the countryside with his older brother. However, Kyo finds himself pulled into a tangled mess when he learns that the house is already inhabited.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tcharlatan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tcharlatan/gifts).



The sun began to set when Kyo finally hauled the last of his belongings up the house’s rickety stairs and to the room at the end of the hall. He eventually deposited the box before one of the open windows, and he could hear Hiromu fussing outside. Even the change in scenery seemed to have done little to calm the older man’s nerves, and Kyo wondered once again if moving out into the countryside with his brother had been the best of ideas. A cool breeze drifted through the window, and Kyo shivered as he shut it.

“Fucking freezing,” Kyo grumbled, and he glanced back at the stack of boxes, unsure which one held his jacket. Even late in the spring, a faint chill filled the air, and Kyo found himself longing for Kyoto’s warmer weather. “Who’s idea was it to move up to Hokkaido, anyway?”

“Don’t drop that!” Kyo heard his brother’s sudden wail, even with the window closed. “Do you have any idea what you’re holding?” Kyo knowingly shook his head. Of course, the idea to move up to Hokkaido had been Hiromu’s idea, and despite Kyo’s displeasure with the idea of leaving the familiarity of Kyoto, he somehow found himself heading north with his brother.

“I need a change,” Hiromu had informed Kyo simply when the blond had asked about the man’s sudden desire to move to a place they had no real connection to. “My work’s become stagnant. I think this change will be good for you too.”

Kyo opened one of the boxes, and he pulled out a jacket. The worn thing hung off of his thin frame when he slid it on. His mother was hardly wealthy, and Kyo’s childhood had been defined by hand-me-down clothes, scant meals, and jumping from shady apartment to shady apartment. As a result he had decided to not attend high school and simply get a job instead. They needed the money, and he had long learned to not expect his mother to maintain a steady job. However, his plans to be able to afford a nicer life never reached fruition as his mother constantly asked for money for groceries that never reached their refrigerator and rent that their landlord never saw.

“She’s just using you,” Hiromu had told Kyo bluntly not long before they had moved to Hokkaido. “How much of your paychecks are you even seeing?” His eyes flicked around the apartment warily. Their mother had a strong dislike of her older son, and her paranoia had a way of demonizing him.

“Relax,” Kyo had said as he watched Hiromu. “She’s not here. As for the paychecks, well…” His spindly fingers tightened around the beer bottle. “Money’s not important, anyway.”

Hiromu had sighed softly, and he had raked his fingers through his short, unruly hair. “I wish you would come with me.”

Kyo opened the bedroom door, and he headed back down the stairs. He had protested at first—he couldn’t run off and leave their mother alone in that dingy apartment with her growing pile of debt and used syringes—but when their mother had returned later that night and had the audacity to scream at Kyo for not having any money to spare, he had finally reached the limits of his patience. He had packed what few possessions he even owned, and he had left the small apartment after his mother had passed out for the evening.

Kyo frowned and zipped up his jacket. He didn’t really want to think about his mother. He hadn’t even left her a note or a message on her phone. _I wonder when she’ll even realize I’m gone for good,_ he thought as he stepped back outside. An overcast day greeted Kyo, and he trotted over to the moving van. Hiromu trailed behind the movers nervously as the two men hauled a large table up and into the house.

He hoisted himself into the moving truck and picked up another box from the shrinking pile. Kyo hadn’t told any of his friends about the sudden move. Well, they weren’t really friends anyway, he thought as he carried the box to the kitchen. Kyo had never been particularly close to anyone, even as he became an adult. Most people his age found him too weird and too quiet, and he never really knew any of his family beyond his mother and Hiromu. The closest he had to friends were some of the people that came into the music store he worked at, and they all felt artificial to him at best.

“What do you think?” Hiromu asked Kyo as the younger brother sat the box down on the kitchen counter. “It’s a nice house, and Sapporo isn’t too far away.” He watched Kyo with a careful gaze. “I’m sure the countryside might get a little boring, so at least there’s a city nearby, right? And there’s that town we passed on the way here, too.”

“If a gas station and three houses count as a town,” Kyo replied as he opened the box. “I guess there is Sapporo…”

Hiromu dug into the box and began to pull out carefully wrapped glasses and plates. “You have a license, right? You can borrow the car if you ever want to head out there. I’ll be working from home now anyway, so I won’t need it too much.”

“Yeah?” Kyo said, as he began to unwrap some of the dishes. “Maybe I will.” He glanced over at Hiromu. His older brother seemed completely focused on putting the dishes in the cupboards and his shaking fingers unwrapped a squat cup. His brother seemed more nervous than usual. “You all right?” he asked. “You seem kind of jittery.”

An anxious smile spread across Hiromu’s face. “Fine, I’m fine,” he insisted. “I suppose I’m just a little… ah, stressed because of the move. Plus, I’ve never lived in a haunted house, you know. You don’t think we’ll have cups being thrown around and doors slamming, do you?”

Kyo blinked. He wasn’t expecting that for an explanation. “What’s this about a haunted house?” he inquired, though the idea did explain a lot about Hiromu’s uneasy demeanor. While Kyo never believed in the paranormal, Hiromu was the type that based all of his decisions on horoscopes and strung garlic cloves outside his bedroom door. “Someone said this place was haunted? I’m surprised you took it then.”

“Well…” Hiromu chuckled. “It was cheap. And I really did want to live in a house instead of a little apartment, you know? Plus, ghosts really aren’t that bad… right?”

Kyo ran his fingers through his hair. “Considering they’re not real, no, they’re not bad at all.” He pulled the last plate from the box and sat it neatly in the cupboard. “I wouldn’t get worked up about it. What the hell would a dead guy be doing shuffling around here, anyway? I think if ghosts do exist, they could find a more interesting place to hang out than some house in the middle of nowhere.”

“You don’t believe in ghosts?” Hiromu inquired as he turned to face Kyo. He looked a bit horrified, as though Kyo had just offended the house’s supposed ghost. “But you used to watch those shows about ghosts.”

“That was an anime,” Kyo pointed out to his older brother. “That’s different. It’s not like I think that stuff is real. It was just interesting to me. You’re not going to start acting weird about it, are you? Because hanging garlic on your door affects vampires, not ghosts.”

“No, I’m not…” Hiromu said, and he rolled up the sleeves of his sweater. “It’s just something that’s been on my mind. It’s probably nothing more than a rumor though, yeah?” He smiled slightly, but he seemed unconvinced. Kyo resisted the urge to sigh and made a mental note to hide any cloves of garlic that Hiromu brought home. He then turned to look out the kitchen window as a couple fat droplets of rain splattered against the glass.

_Ghosts, hm?_


	2. Chapter 2

Fat droplets of rain struck the car’s windshield as Kyo made his way down the narrow, winding road to the supposed “town” nearby. The needle that informed Kyo of how much gas was left in the vehicle teetered over the red bar, so the blond decided that he would need to stop by the small gas station before he even considered the drive down to Sapporo.

The town was particularly lively that day, even with the steady rainfall. A couple of children scampered down the tiny street, chasing a rather shaggy dog. Meanwhile a weathered old woman watched them from the doorway of her house, a fat cigar dangling casually from her narrow lips. The gas station also seemed to be fairly active, considering how small and desolate the town was. A three-wheeled truck groaned to life at the gas pump, and the young man in the vehicle waved to the gas station attendant as he drove off.

Hiromu’s car slowed to a halt before the gas pump, and Kyo slung the hood of his jacket over his head as he stepped out of the tiny vehicle. He looked up at the gas station’s worn sign, and beneath the layers of grit, he managed to make out the words LAST INVITATION GAS STOP in grayish-blue letters. Kyo thought the name was a little strange, and he glanced back at the woman with the cigar hanging from her mouth as she set about talking to the grill in her front lawn. _…I guess that explains it._

“Hey,” the gas station attendant said in a casual greeting, and Kyo turned to look over at the man. He was only slightly taller than Kyo, and he dressed in a jacket that was the same bland color as the letters on the gas station’s sign. The hat on his head kept his face free from the rain, and a pair of thick-rimmed glasses framed a rather angular face. Kyo’s eyes flicked away from the gas station attendant briefly. Despite himself, he had to admit that he found something about the other man strangely appealing.

“I haven’t see you before,” the gas station attendant remarked, and he held out his hand in greeting. “I’d definitely remember someone like you.” His lips curved slightly and offered a slight smile. “My name’s Kaoru.”

Kyo reached out, and he took that hand into his own. Kaoru’s hand was pleasantly warm, and Kyo noticed a few callouses that adorned the gas station attendant’s fingers. “Kyo,” he finally said. “I just moved here recently.”

“That so?” Kaoru said curiously, and he let go of Kyo’s hand. “What brings you all the way out here?” He then turned towards the gas pump. “And what kind of gas do you need? Regular?”

“Yeah, regular’s fine,” Kyo said, and he leaned back against the car as he watched Kaoru grab the nozzle from the pump. “As for why I came up here, well… I guess I needed a change of pace.” _And to get away from my mother and her problems,_ Kyo added mentally, but he didn’t want to share that with someone he didn’t know, even if the man happened to catch his attention. A cool breeze brushed over Kyo, and he shivered as he huddled into his jacket. “Is it usually this cold here?”

“Hm?” Kaoru looked back over at Kyo quizzically. “Actually, it’s not too bad right now. It’s usually a little bit cooler than this.” He glanced up at the sky thoughtfully. “So where are you from originally?”

Kyo breathed in slightly. “Kyoto.” He turned to watch the rain fall from the sky as he felt a twinge of longing. He hadn’t even been away from his hometown for more than a few days, and already he missed Kyoto. For all of his problems that seemed to be rooted in the city, he adored the place. He missed the various temples, and festivals that helped define that old city. He even missed the kitsune udon.

“Kyoto?” Kaoru repeated. “I thought I recognized that accent.” He smiled slightly. “I actually visited Kyoto back when I was a kid. It’s a pretty nice place.”

Kyo nodded a bit numbly. _I wonder when I’ll even get to see it again,_ he thought. He had been so focused on his rather sudden move to Hokkaido that he hadn’t stopped to realize that it could be long while before he saw Kyoto once more. “It is,” Kyo finally agreed. “I already miss it a little, to be honest.”

“Mm…” Kaoru looked back at Kyo. “Well, it’s not too bad here, either. Slow, yeah, but if you ever get bored, well, Sapporo’s not to far away. If nothing else, this place is pretty quiet and peaceful.” He slipped the gas nozzle from the car. “And I think there might be a park not too far from here that’s sort of famous? I can’t remember the name though.” He then walked into the gas station, Kyo following him.

“A park?” Kyo said. “I hadn’t heard anything about a park.” A bell chimed as they both walked into the gas station, and the cat seated on the counter yawned and began to stretch her long legs.

“Yeah?” Kaoru said. “I think it was on a television program at some point. I remember a film crew being there for a while. Something about a documentary.” He walked behind the counter and clacked a few buttons on the cash register, and he frowned as one of the little buttons jammed.

The cat sauntered over to Kyo curiously, and he stroked her head absent-mindedly as he stole another glance at Kaoru. Kyo had dated only a couple of people back when he had still been in Kyoto, and even then, those relationships had been painfully forced at their best. He had tried to maintain some level of affection in both of them, but he had always found himself failing. _For a while I thought maybe I was asexual,_ Kyo thought. Sex had certainly never been something that he had entertained in past relationships, much to the disappointment of his past partners. However, the more he watched Kaoru the more he realized, Guess that’s not the case. Kyo slipped off the hood of his jacket, and his static-charged hair clung stubbornly to his cheeks and forehead.

“Hey,” Kaoru said as Kyo paid for his gas. “I’ll probably see you around, won’t I?” He took the money the blond offered him and slipped it casually into the register.

“Probably,” Kyo said, and he found that he liked the way Kaoru’s fingertips brushed over his hand. “I’ll see you later then.” He pushed his hair away from his face, and he slipped his hood back on. He turned to leave, and he heard Kaoru murmur something as he slipped through the door and back into the steady rain. And as he made his way back to Hiromu’s car, Kyo felt his heart thump in an unfamiliar way. The feeling made Kyo uncomfortable, and when he got into the car he sat for a moment before he even considered fastening his seat belt and turning the keys in the ignition.

_What is this?_ Kyo thought dryly, and he glanced back at the gas station. _Of all times to decide I’m attracted to other people after all…_ Then, after a long moment, Kyo pulled away from the gas station and back onto the narrow little road. The rain then gradually stopped as he left the tiny town for Sapporo.


	3. Chapter 3

“I don’t know what to say,” the tall man in the blue jacket fussed as he looked at the shards of broken glass. “I’m really sorry.”

Kyo walked over to the broken window and resisted the urge to shout frantically at the strange man. “…Shit…” was the only word he could muster up instead. Even as he stood outside, Kyo could see the pieces of broken glass scattered upon the kitchen tiles. “Hiromu’s going to freak out.”

The man scratched the back of his head as guilt flashed across his boyish face. “I can get it replaced,” he insisted. “But um… I won’t have the money until Monday…” He knelt down and tried to piece together two of the hunks of glass that had lodged themselves in the mud.

“Stop that,” Kyo said. “I’m not taking you to the hospital if you cut yourself.” The man dropped them quickly back onto on the ground and rose back to his feet. Kyo looked back at the window. Maybe he could cover the broken window up for the time being. _We have some cardboard boxes still floating around, I guess,_ he thought as he assessed the damage. “I’m going to hold you to that, you know…” he began, but he then trailed off as a thought occurred to him. _What the hell is this guy doing out by the house, anyway?_ Their closest neighbor lived a few miles away, and she was a strange woman who only left the house to add more creepy lawn ornaments to her cluttered yard. Garden gnomes had never disturbed Kyo up until he had found himself being stared down by a small army of them. “Wait,” he said abruptly as he looked over at the strange man warily, “what are you doing out here anyway?”

“Oh…” the man shifted awkwardly. “It’s… well, kind of a funny story,” he insisted sheepishly. “You heard about the woods around here, right?”

“Not really, no,” Kyo said, and he shoved his hands into his pockets. He regretted not grabbing his jacket as he ran outside. The weather was still a little bitter, and it chilled him.

“What, really?” The man seemed shocked by Kyo’s answer. “I thought everyone knew… wow. Anyway, since you don’t know…” the man looked around at the woods cautiously before turning back to face Kyo. “The woods here have a history. People disappearing without a trace and shit like that. But anyway, rumor has it that this place is haunted. Around the time someone disappears, this ghost starts showing up in the woods.” The man shrugged offhandedly. “That’s besides the point. Point is Die claims that he saw it the other day when he was delivering a package to his mother, your neighbor lady. So today we’re looking around for it to prove Die isn’t just losing it.”

“I see…” Kyo said flatly. _So he’s crazy. That explains it._ “So you were looking for a ghost, and like all ghost hunters you thought throwing a rock through a window would attract the ghost?”

“You make me sound like I’m nuts,” the man protested. “Anyway, I saw the ghost. It was this lady in white, and her hair was so long it was dragging on the ground.” He paused briefly. “Something about her was creepy as shit though, and I had gotten separated from Die and Shinya, so I didn’t want the lady to know I was there. I tried sneaking away, but um… I kind of tripped, and she heard me. She looked over at me, and I swear I could hear this weird sobbing. I couldn’t tell if it was her crying though because her hair was covering her face, and she started coming for me. It didn’t even seem like she was running. She just kind of, well, glided over everything. And the closer she got to me, the more I could pick up this smell. I don’t know entirely how to describe it though, like road kill or something…”

The man looked uncomfortable. “So I… I panicked. How could I not have? There were rocks, so I grabbed one and threw it as hard as I could at her, but just as I had thrown it, she was gone like she wasn’t even there to begin with. I heard glass shatter instead, so I guess that’s when I broke your window.”

Kyo looked at the man disbelievingly. “How could she just disappear?”

“Because she was a ghost, obviously,” the man in the blue jacket insisted. “Do you not believe in ghosts?” He shuddered. “Creepy as hell, too.”

“No,” Kyo said simply. “Not at all.” He looked back at the window. “Though I guess it does explain what you’re doing out here.”

Just then a voice rang out from the woods. “Hey, Toshiya!” it called. “Is that you?”

The man turned around as he heard the voice, and after a brief moment, he shouted back, “Yeah, I’m over here!” Crunching sounds echoed softly from the woods, and then two more men stepped out in the open. Kyo raised an eyebrow as he watched the taller of the two men quickly muss the smaller man’s hair before running up to “Toshiya.”

“Hey,” the man said, “what’s going on here?”

“Oh,” Toshiya began, and he glanced back at the kitchen window. “I kind of broke this guy’s window.” He looked back over at Kyo and smiled apologetically. “I’ll get it fixed, I promise. I’m so sorry.”

Kyo glanced away briefly. “Alright, alright,” he conceded, “but Hiromu’s still going to freak when he sees this.”

“Hiromu?” the taller of the newcomers, a man with hair dyed red, repeated as he walked up to the broken window. “I think I just met that guy the other day. He’s very… what’s the word…” the redhead sighed as he looked at the shards of glass everywhere. “God, Toshiya. We’re looking for the ghost, not trying to kill it. I don’t think we could kill it anyway.”

Toshiya shoved his hands into his jackets and sulked. “It’s not like I broke the window on purpose. Besides, you would have done the same thing if you were me. That thing you wanted us to look for is ooky.”

“Done what?” a soft voice echoed. Kyo looked over at the other man that had appeared from the woods. He still fussed over his now-messy hair, and he frowned at the man he had arrived with. He pulled a knitted hat from a jacket pocket and shoved it over his mussed hair in defeat.

“Toshiya broke this guy’s window,” the redhead said. “Hey, Shinya, there’s still that tarp in the back of the truck, right? You think it could cover this up for now?”

The man in the hat, Shinya, walked over to the redhead. “I suppose it could,” he answered. “But we’re not just going to leave it like that, are we?”

“No, no,” Toshiya interjected as he quickly glanced at Kyo, “I’m going to get a new one when I get paid.”

Kyo caught Toshiya’s brief gaze, and he sighed. “Yeah,” he said, “he is.”

The redhead nodded and straightened his jacket. “Alright,” he said. “I’m gonna grab the tarp from the car so we can just cover this up for the time being.” He began to walk off, and he grabbed Toshiya by his jacket’s sleeve as he passed the man in the blue jacket. “You’re coming with me. “

“What?” Toshiya nearly sputtered, and he looked back at Kyo. “But shouldn’t I… fuck, alright. You don’t have to drag me, Die.” The redhead then released his jacket, and they began to walk off.

However, before they got far, the redhead paused to look back over at the man in the hat, “Shinya, stay here until we get back, okay?”

“Huh?” Shinya watched his friends walk off, Toshiya a bit more hesitant than the other. “Oh, sure.” He watched them disappear down the hill, and he turned to face Kyo. “I’m really sorry about this,” he apologized. “Toshiya can be impulsive sometimes.”

The repeated apologies made Kyo’s frustration ebb away, and instead the blond found himself feeling awkward. “I suppose it’s not that big of the deal…” he said. “I mean, he says he’s going to get it fixed. I just need to get his information.”

“He will,” Shinya said certainly. “If nothing else, he’s pretty good at fixing things when he does mess up.” He paused as he took in Kyo’s appearance. “You’re new here, aren’t you? I’m sure I would’ve seen you before otherwise.”

“Yeah, I am,” Kyo replied as he looked at Shinya. Even for living in a rural area, this man dressed well from his maroon-colored pea coat to his immaculately clean boots. “I don’t think I’ve seen you in town.”

“Well, I’ve been gone for awhile,” Shinya said. “I only got back a couple of days ago. I’m Shinya, by the way.” He nodded to the bottom of the hill. “And my two friends are Toshiya and Die. Toshiya is the one that broke your window. Die is the oaf with the red hair.”

“Nice to meet you,” Kyo said. “My name’s Kyo.” He looked back at the window. “I just need to figure out how to break this to Hiromu when he gets back.”

“It was an accident,” Shinya said assuringly. “Hopefully he’ll see that.”

Kyo ran his fingers through his bleached hair. “He’s going to have to,” he admitted, and he glanced up at the darkening sky. “Hey… Toshiya said you guys were looking for ghosts.”

Shinya almost looked embarrassed. “Did he?” he said, and he sighed. “You’ll have to forgive him and Die. They can be a bit superstitious and jump at every ghost story they hear.”

Kyo pulled out a beat-up package of cigarettes from his back pocket. Shinya wrinkled his nose slightly in disdain, but he said nothing. “It sounds like you don’t share their beliefs,” Kyo remarked. “I don’t either though, so I guess I can’t really say anything.” He pulled a slightly bent cigarette from the package, and then fished around in one of his pockets for his lighter.

“That’s because I don’t,” Shinya answered. “Not really. But then again, perhaps it’s because I haven’t lived here my entire life like those two. It seems everyone that was born and raised here are always up in arms about ghosts.” He sighed. “It’s very weird, I suppose, but maybe it’s because it’s such a small community.”

“I wondered,” Kyo said as he lit one of his cigarettes. “It seems like I can’t go anywhere without hearing a new story, to be honest. This house, the woods… the crazy garden gnome lady even stopped by to warn me about the gas station being haunted by the spirits of stray cats or something.”

Shinya hid a knowing smile. “She does that. And I wouldn’t call her that around Die. That’s his mother.”

“It is?” Kyo said, and he looked slightly flustered. “Shit, I didn’t mean anything by it… but what is with those gnomes?”

“Oh, we all think it’s odd,” Shinya admitted. “We just don’t say it around Die. He’s protective of her.”

“I… I see,” Kyo said, and he took a slow puff off of his cigarette. Moments of silence passed between him and Shinya. Finally, Kyo said, “So… Die and Toshiya seem like nice guys.”

Shinya looked over at Kyo curiously, and he then smiled gently. “They are,” he said. “We all live together, and they’re usually amazing. Every now and then they get some incredibly bad ideas though. But they haven’t set the house on fire or anything, so I suppose I can’t really complain.”

“Shinya, hey! You still up there?” Die shouted as he reached the base of the hill.

“Oh, they’re back,” Shinya said, and he walked down to meet up with the two.

Kyo took a couple of steps towards the group. Toshiya fussed with a tarp in a nauseating shade of green while Die tossed around a rather large staple gun. He could hear Shinya threatening to bludgeon Die with his drumsticks if the taller man even so much as accidentally shot a staple at him. For all the bickering and apparent teasing, Kyo could easily tell the three men were close friends.

Kyo dropped his cigarette and stepped on it to smother the orangey red light.


	4. Chapter 4

Rain splattered against Kyo’s bedroom window as the thunder grumbled outside. The blond tossed and turned on his futon, unable to fall into slumber’s welcoming arms. Lightning flashed outside and briefly painted the room with a bright light as Kyo groaned and sat up in defeat. “I should’ve gotten a damn curtain,” he murmured groggily to himself as he rose to his feet, and he shambled sleepily out of his room.

Save for the thunder that roared outside, the house was completely silent, and Kyo’s footsteps echoed in the hall as he made his way into the kitchen. Rain smacked against the tarp covering the broken window, and the noise caught Kyo’s attention. _said he’d come by tomorrow to get that taken care of,_ he thought. _God, hopefully it’s not too early._ He opened the refrigerator door and pulled out a bottle of water.

Kyo took a drink of the refreshingly cool water, and he was about to return to his room when he heard a loud crashing sound, less like the thunder that roared outside and more like the sound of glass shattering. Kyo jumped, startled, and nearly stumbled back into the counter. “What the fuck?” he breathed in confusion. The noise sounded as though it had come from the basement, but that only left Kyo more perplexed. _Is Hiromu in the basement? What the hell is he doing down there? I hope that idiot didn’t mix the bleach and ammonia again._ He muttered moodily to himself as he sat his water on the counter and headed towards the old door that led to the basement.

The door opened with a tired groan and the light from the kitchen cut into the inky darkness of the basement. “Hiromu, you down here?” Kyo called as he searched for the switch to the basement light. He frowned as he was greeted by silence. His fingers brushed over the light switch, and he quickly flicked it on. The lights in the basement flickered to life, and Kyo suddenly regretted his decision to venture downstairs.

Red writing decorated the basement floor, and though Kyo could tell that the words said something, the writing was so faded and sloppy that it was completely illegible. He knelt down and brushed his fingers over one of the words. “How had I not noticed this before?” he murmured, bewildered. The writing was hardly subtle, and Kyo had been in the basement multiple times already, so the fact that he was only now noticing the eerie writing confused him greatly. “Hiromu? No… this looks way too old to be something he did.”

Kyo then looked up and around the basement. Crazy writing on the floor didn’t explain the shattering sound. Light bounced off pieces of broken glass on one of the shelves that lined the basement, and he walked over to it curiously. His nerves hummed with anxiety, and he wanted nothing more than to race back upstairs like a small child, but he pushed the desire away as he investigated the mess on the shelf. The broken pieces of glass had once made up a jar filled with a collection of buttons and other various small objects. The items were scattered along the dusty shelves and floor, and Kyo swore as he accidentally stepped on a pewter cat figurine. “I hate this house,” he snapped moodily. “Who the hell keeps a jar of animals in the basement!?”

He stopped grumbling when he heard another strange noise—the sound of scratching behind the bookshelf, and his nerves screamed. _Oh come on, Kyo,_ he thought to himself. _It’s probably just a mouse or something._ He splayed his hands against the bookshelf as he looked it over. For all that the bookshelf was quite large, Kyo doubted that it was particularly heavy. He sighed as he gripped the shelf and he then slowly pulled it away from the wall. The shelf scraped against the stone floor, and it pushed the cat figurine aside as Kyo moved it.

Light bathed the wall behind the shelf and revealed a heavy door. Kyo frowned and walked over to the door. “Weird,” was all he could muster as a response as he approached the door. More scratching could be heard from behind the door, and Kyo froze. “Shit, but what if it’s more than a mouse back there?” He looked around the basement curiously, and his eyes rested on the large box of boards and pipes in the corner. The previous owner had apparently been a failure of a sculptor, and Kyo found himself suddenly grateful for the last resident’s fruitless aspirations as he picked up one of the pipes from the dusty box. At least if something was behind the door he could bludgeon it.

Kyo walked back over to the door, took a deep breath, and the turned the knob. “…Fuck, guess it’s locked,” he muttered as the door refused to budge, and he looked around the basement. He recalled just spotting a couple of keys earlier, and his eyes rested on the mess left by the shattered jar. Two keys, a shiny silver one and a worn brassy one, sat among the buttons and broken glass, and Kyo picked them both up carefully. He fumbled with the silver key, but when it refused to turn in the lock he opted to try the brassy key. After first the key hardly turned, but the lock then groaned as it eventually gave way. Kyo pocketed the brassy key, and he then opened the door.

The pungent, sickeningly sweet scent of decay wafted from inside the room, and Kyo gagged as the odor invaded his senses. He stepped back from the door and pressed the front of his shirt over his nose and mouth. “Holy fuck…” his muffled voice spat out as he looked in the room. The light from the basement only reached a little ways into the room, but that light was just enough for Kyo to spot glossy red flesh sliding languidly along the floor. His anxiety turned to fear, and he stumbled into the back of the bookshelf. He bit his tongue as he felt something sharp cut into his foot, and he knew instantly that he had just stepped onto some of the broken glass.

The glossy red flesh in the room twitched and it slithered out of the room with an alien sense of grace. Kyo couldn’t tell what the red flesh was when it was in the darkness of the strange room, but in the light he could see that the red flesh made of the shape of multiple tentacles. They slid along the walls and floor in a serpentine manner as they filled the room, and Kyo clenched the pipe until his knuckles turned white. He forgot about the rotten odor from the room, and he forgot about the broken glass beneath his feet. As he watched the tentacles fill the room, one single thought entered his mind: _RUN._

Kyo turned away from the strange room, and he bolted towards the stairs. The tentacles twitched, seemingly sentient enough to detect Kyo fleeing from them, and suddenly they were upon him. The blond panicked and swung the pipe at one of the large, slimy tentacles, but it simple faltered slightly before it wound around the pipe and yanked it away. “Fuck!” Kyo swore, and he tripped as a tentacle wrapped around one of his legs and yanked it from beneath him. He landed hard against the stairs, and he gasped as all of the air that filled his lungs escaped him. Pain filled his chest as Kyo struggled to regain his breath, and all the while the tentacles wound around him. Once they had him firmly in their grips, they pulled him back towards the room.

Darkness surrounded Kyo as the tentacles pulled him into the creepy room. Farther and farther they ventured until the light from the basement was hardly even visible. Kyo gasped for air, and he looked around with wide eyes. For all he couldn’t see the light from the basement anymore, he noticed that the room was still somehow lit up. However, unlike the light from the basement, this light seemed sickly in color, and it colored everything it touched a rust hue.

The strange room opened up and revealed a large space covered with more of the glossy red tentacles. Kyo felt his stomach sink, and he struggled violently against his captors. The tentacles hardly so much as budged against Kyo’s struggles, and they simply dragged him to the center of the room.

“Stop that,” a cool, composed voice echoed in the room. Kyo froze instantly, and he looked around the room in a frenzy. However, he only saw more tentacles, and a desperate sound bubbled from his throat. Cool, dry fingers ran through Kyo’s mussed hair, and he flinched at the touch, confused and terrified.

Kyo could feel the touch, and he could recognize the feel of another’s hand, but he saw no one in the room save for the tentacles, and that bit of knowledge made the touch all the more jarring for him. “Is someone there?” he choked out, and he closed his eyes to shield himself from this very bizarre, very wrong situation he found himself in.

“Yes,” the voice said, and the touch disappeared. “Open your eyes.”

A hysterical sound escaped Kyo’s lips, and he then hesitantly opened his eyes. A young man kneeled before him, dressed in black and with a smooth curve of a smirk on his face. Kyo frowned, confused. He recognized this man. “Wait… aren’t you that gas station attendant?”

Kaoru chuckled in obvious amusement. “Oh, so you remember me?” he mused, and he brushed a wisp of blond hair from Kyo’s forehead. “I’m touched.”

Kyo’s brows knit together. So it was the gas station attendant that was behind the strange room and the tentacles? Fear still gnawed at him, but he also found himself quite confused and angry. Questions filled his mind, but he opted to leave them unspoken until he was in a safer position “Let go of me,” he demanded instead as he glared at Kaoru.

Kaoru simply shrugged in response as he rose to his feet. “No, I don’t think I’ll do that,” he said, and he walked away from Kyo. “Do you know how long I’ve waited to get a hold of you?” One of his hands ran over a tentacle affectionately. “I’m not planning on ever letting go of you.”

“Considering I only moved here like a month ago, you haven’t been waiting that long,” Kyo said dryly and he tried to yank his hands free. “You can’t keep me here, you know. People are going to eventually notice I’m gone.”

“I have my ways,” was all Kaoru said. “I hope they weren’t too rough dragging you here, by the way. They don’t know how to be gentle.” He turned to look back at Kyo and sighed. “I already told you to stop that,” he warned. “If I have to make you stop you won’t enjoy it, so calm down.”

Kyo glared stubbornly at Kaoru. “Well darn, I’m so sorry,” he deadpanned. “I guess I’ll just completely ignore that I was kidnapped by something out of shitty anime porn and do exactly what you want.” He dug his nails into one of the glossy red tentacles, and he could feel the monstrous thing shudder.

Irritation flashed across Kaoru’s face, but he quickly replaced it with a casual smirk. “If you’re going to be like that,” he chided, “then maybe I should just leave you with my shitty anime porn friends until you decide to calm down.” He walked along the tentacle-covered wall. “I’ll see you later, Kyo,” he said, and he began to fade away as he walked until he completely vanished.

“Wait, don’t you—fuck!” Kyo struggled frantically as Kaoru disappeared, and his skin crawled as the tentacles surrounding him began to move. The slid over to him slowly, and Kyo’s nerves shrieked as one of the tentacles ran languidly over his abdomen and slipped into his sweatpants. “No!” Kyo shouted, and he squirmed uncomfortably as the tentacle moved over his skin before sliding slowly around his flaccid cock. “No no no no—“

A second tentacle slid over Kyo’s cheek, and a hysterical shout left the blond right before it shoved itself into his mouth. A muffled noise escaped him and he clenched his eyes shut and fear filled his chest until he briefly wondered if it would explode. He supposed it would be a kinder fate than the nightmare he was trapped in. The tentacle in his mouth moved in and out at a torturously slow pace, and Kyo gagged as it struck the back of his throat.

Cool air brushed over his hips, and dread filled Kyo instantaneously. As the first tentacle began to pump his flaccid cock in an attempt to get him aroused, a third tentacle slid over one of his defined hips and to his backside. Kyo grimaced as he felt the slimy appendage roam over his ass teasingly, and his breath hitched as the tentacles wound tightly around his legs spread them apart, leaving him vulnerable and on display for the rest of the tentacles in the strange room. The third tentacle took advantage of Kyo’s new position as it slid between the blond’s cheeks and over the small opening it discovered.

Hair rose on the back of Kyo’s neck, and he bit down on the tentacle in his mouth in one last attempt to get free. The tentacle spasmed, and a metallic taste filled Kyo’s mouth, but it remained in his mouth. If anything, the tentacle simply thrusted deeper into the blond’s mouth. Kyo growled in dismay, but the angry sound turned into a panicked one as the third tentacle pushed its way into him. The slickness of the tentacle’s flesh did nothing to ease the pain that Kyo felt as it entered him, and he felt as though the large appendage would tear him to shreds. His eyes grew damp even as he clenched them shut, and his body shrieked in pain as the tentacle pounded into him at a furious pace.

More tentacles slid over his body. They traced the contours of his back and hips, and they slid under his shirt to toy with his nipples. All the while the tentacles in his mouth and ass moved in and out of him frantically, and Kyo let his body go limp in defeat. He just wanted the nightmare to end. The tentacle around his cock toyed with the delicate slit, and a muffled sound escaped Kyo as he felt one pleasurable sensation through the pain and discomfort. His cock twitched, and he let his head roll to the side. The tentacle that pounded into his backside spasmed, and Kyo grimaced as he felt a hot and sticky fluid fill him. The tentacle pulled slowly out of the blond, but before he could savor the relief of no longer being fucked by the tentacle another, larger one replaced it. Frustration tore at his chest, and he nearly gagged as the tentacle in his mouth twitched and forced that same hot liquid down his throat. The tentacle slipped itself from his mouth, and Kyo spat the rest of the fluid on the ground beside him. Another tentacle attempted to slide into his mouth, but he turned away from it as he felt it touch his cheek.

Kyo opened his eyes, and they focused on the man in the corner of the room. Kaoru had returned at some point, it seemed, and he watched Kyo, his eyes dark and glittering with a madness that Kyo could hardly fathom. He wanted to scream at Kaoru and maul the other man until his face was a bloodied, unidentifiable mess. He opened his mouth to say such, but instead an agonized scream escaped him as a second tentacle joined the tentacle already brutally pounding into his ass. Excruciating pain tore through him, and his vision grew dark and blurry as he glared at the despicable man that watched him.

Kaoru tilted his head to the side as he watched Kyo lose consciousness, and after a long silence, he finally uttered, “It’s time to wake up.”

Kyo’s eyes snapped opened, and he flailed pathetically as his limbs tangled themselves in his blankets. Hiromu jumped back to avoid getting smacked by his younger brother. “Whoa, careful there,” he said. “It’s me, it’s me!”

“Mmmf—Hiromu?” Kyo murmured confusedly as he looked around the room with wide eyes. Plain white walls decorated with music posters and curtain-free windows greeted him instead of the tentacle-infested room he had just been in. His sweat-soaked shirt clung to him even as he sat up.

Hiromu smiled worriedly. “Oh thank god. I’ve been trying to wake you up for the past fifteen minutes. You were sleeping so hard you didn’t even hear your alarm go off. Web-Doctor told me you might’ve been in a coma, so I was worried.”

“Huh—Web-Doctor?” Kyo said. “But wait, what about last night? I heard crashing, and, er…”

“Oh, you heard that too?” Hiromu said with a soft chuckle. “One of those huge shelves in the basement fell over. The stuff on it went everywhere.” He then sighed. “It was a mess to clean up, but the wall behind it is really strange. The bricks there look different from the rest of the basement. I wonder if something used to be there.”

Kyo’s blood ran cold.


End file.
